Jul 27, 2013

06:21 AM

Former Litchfield Jail Built in 1812 Can Be Yours, It's on the Market

By Ryan Flynn

Ryan Flynn-Register Citizen

The former jail in Litchfield center.

The old Litchfield jail is again on the market. The state Department of Administrative Services will attempt to sell the vacant building located 7 North St. in the center of Litchfield and has offered two public tours for residents to inspect the innards of the historic building.

A public tour was offered from noon to 3 p.m. on Friday and another will be held on Aug. 1 from 8 a.m. to noon. Proposals to purchase the building are due by August 14.

The state has been looking for a buyer since 2010. The former jail was last used as a rehabilitation center for women.

Taking ownership of the jail, which was built in 1812, has been turned down several times by the town, most recently in June of 2012, when it was offered to Litchfield at no cost. The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously against accepting the property then, calling it too risky and expensive.

“We’d be in the flipping business,” First Selectman Leo Paul told the Register Citizen in 2012.

The 201-year-old former jail is one of the “oldest penal facilities in the state,” according to historicbuildingsct.com. Oddly enough, the jail has shared a common wall with a bank for most of its existence. The First National Bank of Litchfield was built beside it in 1816, in the location now operated by Union Savings Bank.

The building ceased to operate as a prison in 1992, after “a jail break in which a guard was stabbed and a New York man taken hostage,” according to a 1994 New York Times article.

“Traditionally, the county jail had only housed inmates convicted of minor crimes. But over the past several years, as a state institution, the old building had been opened up to criminals with violent records and loaded to its 120-prisoner capacity,” the article states.